


Let Me Not Mar That Perfect Dream

by surlybobbies



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 10:00:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20637296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surlybobbies/pseuds/surlybobbies
Summary: Dean knows it's a dream almost as soon as he opens his eyes.  And just like every other time this has happened, he knows exactly what he wants to do.





	Let Me Not Mar That Perfect Dream

**Author's Note:**

> DeanCas Flipfest 2019

Let me not mar that perfect dream 

By an auroral stain,

But so adjust my daily night 

That it will come again.

Emily Dickinson

Dean knows it’s a dream almost as soon as he opens his eyes. The ceiling spins above him, and everything around him - his sheets, his pillow, the clothes on his body - are so heavy he feels like he’s moving through sand.

At first, he stays very still. He takes a breath, just enough to steady his thoughts, but not deep enough to wake himself. He needs to hold on to this. He knows what waits for him just outside the boundary of this illusionary bedroom, and it’s worth the struggle.

Eventually, slowly, he gets up. His limbs are heavy but he breathes through the task. When he’s on his feet, he stares at his hands, blurring at the edges and fighting to fall back to his sides. He clenches and unclenches them to ground himself. 

When he thinks he’s ready, he walks out of his bedroom and into the hallway, savoring the stark coldness of the tile against his bare feet. Trying to tether himself to the dream, he touches the smooth walls on either side of him and focuses on the friction against on his fingertips. 

The hallway opens to the living room, and, turning, Dean finds what he hoped to find: Cas, in their tiny little apartment kitchen, sternly watching the coffee maker as if his glare might convince it to work a little faster - just like every Saturday morning. 

Dream Cas, with his hip leaning against the counter and his hands clutching an empty mug, is barely awake. Still, he’s able to mumble out, “Good morning, Dean.” His voice is softer than usual, a little muffled, like it’s been wrapped in cotton. “How are you feeling?”

“Morning, Cas,” Dean says out loud. His voice has the same dulled quality. “Morning, Cas,” he repeats a little louder, massaging his ear.

Cas frowns at him. “I heard you the first time.”

If this were real life, Dean would roll his eyes, but all he does now is grin, affection making him soft. “Smartass.” 

Cas has shifted his attention back to the coffee. “Thank you,” he says, but his tone lacks bite without caffeine.

Dean leans against the door jamb and watches. This is a familiar scene in his life, but here in Dean’s head, _possibility _spills out in every direction and Dean wants to take his time, wants to see where each thread of possibility might lead him, if one might lead him to a world in which Cas already _knows, _and Dean won’t have to deal with _telling._

In a little bit, Dean knows, Cas will pour out two mugs of coffee and sit at the table with his phone out and wait for Dean to join him. They’ll sip at their coffee and wonder aloud who’s going to make breakfast until finally Dean will cave and make an omelette or something. It’s always been that way.

But... it doesn’t have to be that way. Dean turns over the idea in his head like he’s appraising an antique coin in his palm. What if Dean changed it up? What if instead of making breakfast, Dean teaches Cas how to make his pancakes? What if instead of keeping Cas at the table, Dean reaches out and pulls him in and -

What if?

Dean never gives that question any attention in real life. There’s too much mess in that world, too many questions already, and no room for one as big as _what if_. But here, here in his head? _What if _is the only thing that exists.

For now, Dean watches. He watches because it’s easy and there’s no consequence. Dream time won’t catch up with him. Maybe he could pass forever away staring at Cas’s profile, the shadow of his lashes against his cheek, the stubble darkening his chin. He could never try this in the real world, not when Cas might actually catch him at it. 

While Dean watches, Cas transforms into an abandoned marionnette: uncanny and ethereally still. Dean touches his thumb to each of the fingers of his right hand before he loses the thread of the dream. The vision of an empty bed threatens to pull him away. _Concentrate, _he tells himself. 

Cas suddenly shifts into motion as he stifles a yawn behind his hand and Dean releases the tension twisting his gut.

Once he’s sure the dream won’t slip away from him, Dean indulges some more. He’s always amazed at how accurately his brain can recreate Cas. Everything is perfect about his appearance, from the fresh bedhead down to the scar running up Cas’s leg from when he tore open his shin on a hike. 

“Are you going to sit down?” Cas asks without turning around. “You’re just standing there.”

“Got eyes in the back of your head?” Dean asks, grinning when Cas turns just to glare at him.

“Sit down and drink my coffee,” Cas snips, pulling down two mugs from the cabinet. 

Dean sits. He doesn’t say anything else. The less he talks the longer these dreams tend to last.

The coffee that Cas slides in front of him is perfect. So too is Cas, who sits across from Dean and pulls out his phone. He’s probably checking his email, Dean thinks, a thought that he stifles almost immediately, because no - the Cas sitting in front of him is Dream Cas and dreams don’t have emails. They sit there and tap away because that’s what the dreamers want them to do.

“Put the phone away,” Dean finds himself saying. 

Cas looks up at him in surprise. His thumbs hang over the screen. “Why?”

“Just- just put it away, dude,” Dean mumbles. He’s embarrassed. Usually his dreams don’t talk back.

Cas puts it away slowly, but he does put it away. When it’s back in his pocket, he looks back up at Dean, all wide blue eyes and concern. “Are you feeling okay? Or… did you… want to talk?”

_I always want to talk to you, _Dean wants to say, but that seems like too much truth even for a dream. He takes a long breath, counting the seconds on the inhale, then on the exhale. “Yeah,” is all he says.

Cas blinks. “Okay. What should we talk about?”

Dream Cas is beautiful. His eyes, curious, blink at Dean’s silence, and his lips - always pale - part as if to say something else. Dean shakes himself out of his reverie. “Never mind,” he says, voice so tired he barely recognizes it. There’s no point talking to his own subconscious, so he offers it breakfast instead. “How’s eggs sound?”

Cas is frowning, still concerned. Dean wants to brush away the furrow between his brows. 

He gets up and turns away instead. “Omelette okay with you? Mushrooms, some green onions?” He waits for an answer even though he knows what it’s going to be.

“With toast please.”

Dean knows this dream and its wants; he already has the bread in his hands. 

The preparation of breakfast takes either five seconds or five minutes. Dean’s head is still fuzzy, and it seems like between one blink and the next he’s finished folding Cas’s omelette and toasting Cas’s bread. 

When he turns around to slide the plate in front of Cas, he almost loses balance. He grips the table, feels the reassuring woodgrain under his fingers, and takes a seat across from Cas. “Eat up,” he says.

“What about you?”

Even in dreams, Cas’s first thought is about Dean. Dean shrugs. “Not hungry.”

Cas frowns. “You should eat.”

Dean doesn’t answer. He’s watching Cas squirt ketchup onto his eggs, and he’s not even grossed out. All he feels here is peace, and apparently that extends to Dream Cas’s questionable taste in food.

“You’re staring at me,” Cas says, though he’s looking down while he mixes his eggs, which are orange now. “Is there a reason?”

“Just admiring the view,” Dean says honestly, amused when Cas looks up at him through his eyelashes and glares. “Eat up, handsome.”

Dream Cas blushes like Dean hoped he would. “Flatterer,” Cas mumbles. “What do you want this time?”

_Everything, _Dean wants to say, but even here in his own head, that truth is too much to give away. “Just your attention.”

The look Cas gives is mostly affectionate, but a little exasperated too. “You always have my attention, Dean. So trust me when I say you should _eat something._”

Something about those words makes Dean’s stomach flip. “Not hungry,” he says belatedly. He taps his coffee mug to distract himself from the warmth climbing up his neck.

“Any plans today?” Cas asks eventually. 

“Not really,” Dean murmurs.

“The toilet’s acting up again,” Cas suggests. 

“You know, when I agreed to be your roommate, I didn’t realize I was signing up to be your handyman too.”

“Sorry,” Cas says, though the large bite of toast he’s just taken diminishes his apology.

“You’re not sorry,” Dean accuses.

Cas’s lips twitch. “No,” he admits. “But I am grateful.”

“You wouldn’t know what to do without me,” Dean says confidently, kicking Cas’s foot underneath the table.

“I really wouldn’t,” Cas says matter-of-factly, and there’s no bitterness in his voice at all. 

Dean smiles to himself. For a while, he watches Cas eat. Then he asks, “Isn’t this much better than being on your phone?” 

“Marginally,” Cas answers. “But that’s not saying much since all I was doing was answering work emails.”

“That’s not nice.”

“Since when have I been nice?”

“Since you met me,” Dean says, grinning in the way he knows irritates Cas to no end. “Melted that cold heart of yours.”

He’s not really exaggerating - not too much at least - and even if he is giving himself a little too much credit in helping Cas lighten up, it doesn’t matter here in his head.

“I wouldn’t quite put it that way,” Cas says. “But it’s a fair enough statement.”

Dean is taken aback for a little bit, but then he remembers it’s a dream - it’s _his_ dream - and Cas in his dreams is always a little less stiff, a little more affectionate, a little more open. “How would you put it then?” he asks, curious despite knowing that it’s just his subconscious supplying the conversation.

Cas is swirling his eggs around on the plate now, leaving trails behind in the ketchup. He’s watching his fork with a contemplative frown. “You put me at ease,” he eventually says. “When I met you, I was working 14 hours a day, convinced that business was all I was good at. I didn’t bother with relationships.” When he looks at Dean, his eyes are warm. “You reminded me that not everyone is my father, who demanded 110% all the time.”

Dean has to consciously close his mouth. His throat is itchy. He swallows painfully. “What do you - “

But Cas is looking over Dean’s shoulder now, at some dream within a dream, and he’s still talking. “I used to think that to be ‘just’ anything would be a waste of my life. But now I’m okay with being ‘just’ me.” He shakes himself out of his reverie and meets Dean’s eyes with absolute sincerity. “Much of that has to do with you, of course.”

Warmth has migrated from Dean’s coffee mug to the tips of his ears. “Oh,” is all he can say. His voice seems separate from his own body.

Cas is back to eating now, casual as you please. “To this day,” he continues, “You’ve never asked for anything I was not ready for. You’re okay with ‘just’ me.”

Dean wants to laugh it off, especially because, to Dean, Cas has never been ‘just’ anything, not even ‘just’ a friend - but the sincerity in Cas’s voice stops him. Cas is either snippy and sarcastic or completely too sincere - never anywhere in between - and Dean knows to appreciate the rare moments of sincerity. He nudges his foot against Cas’s calf. “I’m glad,” he murmurs.

“But at the same time you challenge me,” Cas continues, still chewing, “in the best ways possible. It wouldn’t be a particularly healthy relationship if we didn’t make each other better, after all.”

Dean’s throat feels like it might close up from the shock. “Oh.”

Cas finally looks up at him. “You changed my life, Dean,” he says, as if messages like that are meant to be dropped over a plate of eggs and ketchup. 

It’s not easy, but Dean eventually closes his mouth. He’s shocked and amazed and pleased and conflicted, but mostly he feels undeserving. Nothing about Dean has the right to make such a difference in anybody else’s life, especially not in a life like Cas’s, not even in the life of Dream Cas.

He wonders if he’ll remember this when he wakes up, or if Cas’s words will slip out of his grasp like satin spilling onto the floor. He hopes he can at least remember this feeling - overwhelming gratitude, overwhelming love and pride and protectiveness. 

“Thanks, dude,” he murmurs, almost overwhelmed with affection when Cas starts eating again like he hasn’t just killed Dean’s remaining brain cells. 

“It helps that you aren’t terribly unattractive,” Cas adds, and even with egg hanging from the corner of his mouth, he’s able to pull off the shit-eating grin quite well.

Dean closes his eyes because he can feel his cheeks burning under Cas’s gaze. “‘Not terribly unattractive,’” he repeats. “Wow, I’m flattered.” And he really is, even if Cas would never say this sort of thing in real life - sarcastic or not. 

“You’re welcome,” Cas says. In the place of his earlier grin is something softer, the kind of smile Dean wants to wake up to.

They lapse into silence. Cas finishes his eggs and mops up the ketchup with his last bite of toast. He doesn’t take out his phone, and Dean’s more than willing to sit there and watch. 

He knows he’ll wake up and this dream, if he remembers it at all, will be disjointed and blurry at best, so he concentrates on capturing as much of it as possible: the warmth and weight of Cas’s leg against his own, the affection twisting Cas’s mouth, the hair that probably hasn’t been touched since Cas got out of bed this morning. 

It’s difficult, because Dean’s head has started to throb despite his best efforts. He wants to go back to sleep, but ironically that would mean waking up.

Cas looks up from his plate and catches Dean’s eye. Dean’s suddenly nervous, though he can’t explain why. He stands and sweeps away Cas’s plate. He washes it and dries it and stows it away in their cabinets. 

As he does, the memory of Cas’s gaze saturates his thoughts, and he dreams, but he dreams the kind of dreams he has when he’s awake:

He dreams for a day he and Cas share a kitchen that belongs to both of them, in a house that they paid for, not as roommates but as something infinitely more lasting. He dreams for breakfast and lunch and every casual touch in between. He even dreams for more clogged sinks and creaky cabinets, if only because Cas wanting it fixed would mean he wants to stick around. 

Those dreams still weigh heavy on his heart when he turns around, wiping his hands. And when he lifts his eyes to see Cas still sitting at the table and watching him, not even bothering to pretend he wasn’t, Dean dreams of the courage he doesn’t have in real life.

He takes a step forward, then reaches out. He brushes a hand through Cas’s hair.

The click of Cas’s throat is audible. “Your hand’s wet,” Cas says faintly. His eyes are wide. His throat bobs.

“Sorry,” Dean murmurs, entranced by the thickness, the softness, the strange _thereness_ of Cas’s hair. “Just fixin’ it,” he says, but despite that, he leaves his hand there, right there, right where he’s wanted it to be for ages - just resting on the side of Cas’s face, brushing Cas’s right ear, barely even in his hair anymore, but steady, steady. _Steady, Dean._

The dream suddenly feels like it’s been captured in resin. When Cas blinks, it’s slow, and when he licks his bottom lip, it’s even slower.

Dean is suddenly aware of the shallowness of his breath. He closes his eyes and tries to get it under control before the dream slips away. When he feels calmer, when Cas’s skin beneath his palm is hot to the touch, he opens his eyes.

“Are you feeling okay?” Cas asks. There’s a slight tremor in his voice. His eyes dance between Dean’s, but then they dip to Dean’s lips, and suddenly Dean knows: this is it, this is the one place, one time, one universe, one dream in which he can get it right.

“Never better,” he whispers, leaning forward. The hand he has on Cas’s cheek slips to the back of Cas’s neck. 

As Dean leans in even more, he sees the confused furrow between Cas’s brow melt away. Cas’s eyes flutter shut. He tilts his head up.

Dean’s eyelids are half-lidded now. 

He’s angling his face to fit their lips together when -

Suddenly, from his room, music begins to play. It’s his ringtone for Sam. 

His eyes snap open to meet Cas’s wide blue ones. “Stop,” he says, bewildered. 

The music doesn’t stop. 

“What?” Cas breathes. They’re still so close Dean feels the warmth of the word on his skin.

The music, tinny and terrible, continues like it will never stop, ever.

With a sickening wrench of his stomach, Dean instantly understands. He withdraws his hand from Cas’s hair, mortified and disgusted with himself.

Cas is still watching him, alarmed. 

“Dean, are you - “

“I’m so sorry,” Dean breathes. He looks to the hallway, toward the sound that brought him out of the dream - the dream that was never a dream in the first place. Then he looks back at Cas and backs out of the room despite the way his stomach drops when he sees Cas’s confusion. “I’m sorry,” he says again, then turns away to flee into his bedroom.

His bedroom is not an escape. Sam’s call went to voicemail and Dean can’t be bothered to return it. He sits instead on his bed and stares at his hands, stunned. 

On his bedside table is his phone, two pink carnations in an empty beer bottle (Cas had bought the flowers and left them forgotten on the dining room table), and the bottle of cough syrup Cas gave him in the middle of the night. 

Dean had been suffering from the cough for a week. He thought it to be improving these last few days, but last night come his bedtime, it started up again, painful and deep from his chest, making him despise the thought of breathing. 

The walls in the apartment aren’t particularly thin, but still, last night Cas knocked loudly on Dean’s door and banged it open without even waiting for a response.

“You’re keeping me up,” he said, voice rough. He held up a bottle of cough syrup, unopened. “Stop posturing and take this. It’ll put you to sleep, too, so you won’t be such a sleep-deprived dick tomorrow.”

“_I’m _the sleep-deprived dick in this scenario?” Dean rasped, having lifted the pillow from off of his face to glare at Cas in the doorway. 

Cas walked over and put the bottle on Dean’s bedside table. “Take the stupid cough syrup so neither of us have to be a sleep-deprived dick, alright?” 

Dean was about to reply with a not-so-polite response, but then Cas reached forward and ran a hand through Dean’s hair, just once. 

“Feel better,” he said quietly, and Dean was so amazed he couldn’t respond, not even when Cas tacked on, “Good night, dick,” at the end of his sentence, right before leaving the room.

Eventually Dean took Cas’s advice and took a serving of the cough syrup. It took care of the cough, knocked him out within a few minutes, and apparently had enough kick still left in it in the morning to convince Dean that he’d woken up into a dream.

Dean puts his elbows on his knees and runs his hands through his hair, trying to breathe, trying to convince himself that the situation is not irredeemable. Cas is not an irrational, unreasonable person. If Dean could just explain to him -

But no. Explain what? That Dean had only been leaning in to - to what? What other conclusion could Dean lead Cas to draw besides the obvious one?

A restlessness takes root in Dean’s hands, in his feet, in his legs. He stands. He sits. He presses his palms over his eyes so hard he sees stars bursting into pinpricks of light. 

He stops only because he hears the phantom of Cas’s voice in his ear. _You’re hurting yourself._

So Dean puts his hands on his knees. He breathes. He does it for Cas, even if Cas may not ever want to speak to him again.

Eventually he convinces himself to be brave. To be brave like Cas is. Like Cas _was_ when he confronted his father years ago: full of fear, full of the knowledge that a part of his life was about to end but ready for another part to begin regardless.

Dean isn’t ready for this part to end; he never imagined it would - but Cas would face it regardless. 

This newfound bravery carries Dean back out into the hallway. Still, it is a fragile bravery, and it makes him pause outside of his door and put a steadying hand on the wall. It makes him waver. It makes him weak. But Dean pushes on. His feet are still bare. The tile is freezing.

Cas is still sitting at the table where Dean left him, despite many minutes having passed. He’s staring at the wood grain of their tiny dining table, but when he hears the padding of Dean’s feet, he looks up. His eyes are wary but sharp.

Dean drops his eyes. His bravery flees. He heads to the sink instead of the table and turns on the tap. He washes his hands, aware of the way Cas’s gaze lands heavy on his back. He feels the itch in the back of his throat that should have told him all he needed to know and clears his throat.

By the time the water has run clear, Dean’s hands have started to tremble. What now? Turn around? Look Cas in the eye? Both are impossible. 

Cas’s voice, when it eventually comes, is remarkably steady and reminds Dean of how much _more _Cas is (how much _less _Dean is): “Dean, please talk to me.”

Dean hangs his head. He turns off the tap and braces his hands against the cold metal edges of the sink. He says the only thing that can be said, the only thing that might come the closest to an explanation, even though it feels dreadfully inadequate: “I thought I was dreaming.” 

In the silence of the kitchen, the words sound absurd. Cas’s lack of response solidifies Dean’s embarrassment and it becomes alive, a wriggling thing under his skin that he’s desperate to get out. 

“Just forget it,” Dean continues roughly. “Please.”

A long moment of silence stretches between them. Finally, Cas says dryly, “You thought you were dreaming.” He sounds almost irritated.

Defeated, Dean turns around, but he can’t find it in him to look at Cas. He grips the edge of the counter behind him to steady himself and stares at the sight of his toes against the white tile of their apartment. “Just forget it,” he says again. “It didn’t happen.” He’s desperate to abandon this morning as the nightmare it was.

But Cas isn’t interested in abandoning it. His eyes are narrowed. “You only _thought_ you were dreaming,” he says slowly. “So what you did - that was all you. You chose that.”

Behind Dean, the tap drips a steady rhythm, a bizarrely normal counterpoint to this bizarre reality he’s walked into. He feels like his world is shaking apart, one breath at a time, and the tap is counting down to its destruction. “How am I supposed to answer that, dude?”

“It wasn’t a question,” Cas says. The fingers of both hands tap along the sides of his mug as he watches Dean.

Dean’s cheeks heat under Cas’s observation. “Whatever. We gonna forget it or what?”

Cas doesn’t answer. He continues to survey Dean. There is no expression in the set of his mouth, and his eyes are unreadable. “You wanted… to kiss me.”

Dean closes his eyes, mortified. Hearing that moment given life through Cas’s voice multiplies his misery, already so acute. “Cas, I’m sor -”

“So you’re not denying it,” Cas interrupts.

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose, trying for irritated but in reality wanting to sink through the floor, maybe fold into himself into such tiny pieces he can float down into the drain with the water leaking from the faucet. “If denying it were a plausible option, trust me, I’d take it. But it’s obvious, isn’t it? All I _can _do is apologize - “

The scrape of the kitchen chair stops Dean’s words. His eyes snap open. Cas is standing now - touching the table with one hand and gripping the back of his chair with the other: frozen, as if he’d forgotten his task in the middle of doing it. 

“I’m sorry,” Dean breathes, desperate. “I wish you’d forget it.”

Cas takes one step forward. He licks his lips. “I don’t know if you noticed, Dean,” he says, in the manner of a man trying to remain composed but on the verge of mania, “but you weren’t the only one who wanted that kiss.”

The words stun Dean, and for a moment his brain goes offline. Why is he in the kitchen? Why is Cas looking at him like that? What is with the beating of his heart? Didn’t he fix that goddamn sink last week? 

Then just as suddenly his brain is back online and all Dean sees is the memory of the tilt of Cas’s chin, the proximity of Cas’s lips, the feverish warmth of his skin as he neared Dean. The breath leaves Dean’s lungs all at once. 

Cas has moved toward him. The few feet between the table and the sink have shrunk beneath Cas’s steps forward. His cheeks are flushed, and his mouth is parted. It might be the most beautiful Cas has ever been.

Then there are fingertips on Dean’s sternum: light and unassuming, but Dean feels them like a two-ton weight. 

Cas’s eyes flicker between Dean’s. He watches carefully for a few moments, and then, so deep and low it’s agonizing, he asks, “What are you waiting for?” His gaze dips down once more to Dean’s mouth and stays there for a long, tense moment. He looks up at Dean, then: kind but just a little bit cheeky. “I don’t think you’re dreaming this time either.”

It’s that - the simple _Cas-_ness of the answer - that lifts the weight off Dean’s chest. Now it’s just Cas’s hand on his chest, and it’s touching him, and it’s grounding him, and even in his wildest dreams Dean never thought he’d feel Cas’s hands on him quite like this. He lifts his own hand and curves it around Cas’s jaw. He can feel Cas’s smile underneath his palm. To see it this up close is a privilege.

Dean leans in and meets the press of Cas’s lips with his. The first touch is tentative, but instantly Dean is warmed from the inside out. Every slow press and pull, every new bit of heat, every delighted laugh Cas makes between kisses makes Dean’s stomach flip. It soothes the tension in Dean, unknotting the fear and mortification of a rejection that was never a rejection, in a dream that was never a dream.

At some point Cas presses even closer. The warmth in Dean’s gut builds to a dangerous simmer. His hands cling desperately to Cas’s ribcage. 

It’s only when Cas pulls away with a raised eyebrow that Dean realizes that the dripping faucet behind him has stopped.

Cas’s look is way too smug, but his voice is matter-of-fact: “You have to really force it shut.”

Despite decidedly not kissing Dean, Cas is still pressed tantalizingly close. Dean takes a deep calming breath. “The sink,” he said.

“The sink,” Cas confirms sweetly. “When are you going to take care of it, by the way?”

Dean lets his smile answer for him. He leans in again.

When Dean wakes up, it’s to a cold bed. Next to him is the usual sight: white pillows against white sheets and nothing else. 

Sudden sharp needles of bitter disappointment burrow into his heart. _A dream, _he mourns. 

He runs a hand through his hair and looks despairingly at the room. It’s pristine. Untouched. There’s almost no evidence of anyone having spent any time in here, and it’s been Dean’s room for four years.

For a few painful moments, Dean is devastated.

But then.

His eyes adjust. He looks more closely. And he notices that the door is open. Dean stares. His door is never open. He shoves down the hope threatening to spill over. 

As he stares, he hears a familiar sound. Somewhere in the apartment, somewhere in their tiny little kitchen, there is the sound of cooking. Someone is cooking. No one but Dean ever cooks in this apartment.

The floor underneath Dean’s bare feet is cold when he gets out of bed, but as he nears the kitchen, warmth envelops him. 

“Cas,” Dean stutters. 

Cas turns around from where he’s standing in front of the stove. He’s holding a spatula. He’s wearing Dean’s shirt. He has pancake batter on his left eyebrow. “Hello,” he says mournfully. “I burned the pancakes.”

Joy suffuses Dean’s veins. He’s grinning by the time he’s at Cas’s elbow, staring down at a stack of pancakes with a distinct layer of char. “They’re perfect,” he says, not exactly lying.

Cas has the furrow between his brow that says he hasn’t had his coffee yet. “You don’t have to lie to me just because we slept together,” he grumbles.

It’s the word _together _that Dean latches on to. He touches Cas’s shoulder, then drags his hand down Cas’s back, which is covered in Dean’s shirt even though Cas’s own closet was literally ten feet away. “I’ll teach you,” he says.

“So you _were _lying,” Cas accuses. He looks at Dean with narrowed eyes, but the effect is lessened by the way his gaze slips down to Dean’s lips.

Dean’s smile is slow to grow. He’s still stunned that this force of a man who spent his nights in Dean’s dreams will spend every night from now on in Dean’s bed as well. 

He takes the spatula from Cas’s loose grip. “They’re perfect,” he said again, “but they’re not edible.” An itch takes residence in his throat. He coughs.

“Did you take that cough syrup I gave you?” Cas asks. His gaze is sharp now as he surveys Dean’s face.

“You know,” Dean says, grinning, “I did.”

“Did it work?” 

Dean looks at Cas. He looks at the stack of burned pancakes next to the stove, then at the sink faucet that he’ll need to repair. He returns his gaze to Cas and says, with complete certainty, “Yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know - kind of convoluted. I've never actually had an experience quite like this with any OTC drugs (but I assume it's possible.) I have, however, woken up from a nap thinking it was 6am when in fact it was dinner time, and I walked around for a good 15 minutes very confused about why my family wasn't getting ready for their days. 
> 
> (In other words, LOOK OK DEAN IS VERY TIRED AND SICK DON'T POKE HOLES IN MY PLOT)
> 
> Thank you, as always, to the Flipfest mods and community! This is a great fest to participate in. 
> 
> ALSO, I was lucky enough to have Correlia as my artist for this fest, so when she sends me that link, you'll be able to see her work based off of this fic! Thanks so much, Correlia!!


End file.
